Roll Over Menno

Why is it that the Mennonite Central Committee of BC are so into saving the earth these days?

For example, under ‘New Resources’ (here), they list a book called Creation and the Environment: An Anabaptist perspective on a Sustainable World. If you look in this book at amazon.com (here), you can see it’s basically a book about sustainability and going green, which is a buzzword for the new earth centered ideology (see here). But then, this should not be surprising, as we all know of the MCC’s involvement with the UN.

Also listed under ‘New Resources’ on the BC MCC site is Readings from the Perspective of the Earth (The Earth Bible Series) which you can see here. This is based on the idea that the earth is a sacred living organism (Gaia hypothesis).
On that Earth Bible page you will see ‘Earth Bible Progress Reports’. If you click on that, you will notice (under Earth Liturgies, bottom of the page) a hymn that has been rewritten into an “Earth Bible Re-write”:

The new Earth Songs emphasise not only the web of creation and the interconnectedness of nature, but also the need to respect Earth as sacred and listen to Earth as a living subject. One song was sung as a themesong at opening of the 2001 Asia Pacific Earth Charter Conference in Brisbane. The Earth Bible was also part of one of the workshop sessions.

A traditional hymn that devalues Earth commences, ‘Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land.’ An Earth Bible re-write of verse one that song follows:

You who watch the highest heavens
Wond’ring where God’s mansions are;
You who hope to spot an angel
Spinning like a falling star;
Earth is calling,
Earth is calling,
Come back home and rest in me,
Come back home and rest in me.

Think about that for a moment. Who is that song about, who is it to? We all know who the angel is who falls to earth. It’s in the Bible. So apparently, according to the ‘Earth Bible’, a hymn asking God to guide us through this land in which we are pilgrims devalues the earth and needs to be re-written. And this is what the Mennonite Central Committee supports?

Are Christians supposed to focus on saving the earth to bring in the kingdom of God? The MCC says so. Is that what the Bible says? Is the MCC promoting green dominion theology? Meanwhile, as good little Mennonites give money to the MCC for disaster relief around the world, they have no idea they are contributing to the world’s Gaia/Earth Charter/Sustainablity system.

Here is some related reading:

Is Earth Our Mother?

Calling the Spirit of Gaia

See other Mennonite Earth Care links here:
http://mcc.org/careforcreation/resources/

And here:
http://www.mennocreationcare.org/Home/RESOURCES

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